How North Figueroa Has Become One of the Hottest Streets in Los Angeles

Highland Park’s North Figueroa Street is quietly becoming one of northeast Los Angeles’ hottest streets for businesses and real estate investors.

After years of playing second fiddle to the neighborhood’s popular York Boulevard, North Figueroa is now surpassing it with a renaissance that’s bringing a slew of new restaurants and shops as well as creative firms and even traditional businesses that have previously rarely considered the area.

With nearby hipster enclaves Silverlake and Echo Park on one side and popular Pasadena on the other, Highland Park is perfectly positioned to capture spill-over demand with its bevy of historic buildings, increasingly affluent resident population and access to Metro Gold Line and the 110 freeway.

“It’s the next Abbott Kinney,” said Dana Brody, at brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle Inc., referencing the popular Venice Beach shopping street that GQ Magazine once named the coolest block in America. “It will be in about five to 10 years. Now, you can’t touch Abbott Kinney for less than $1,000 a square foot.”

This stretch of North Figueroa from about North Avenue 50 to South Avenue 60 has long been home to local mom-and-pop shops, many of which catered to the large working-class and Latino population of the neighborhood in the more recent past. It’s slowly been changing as more affluent millennial couples move in. Perhaps the kick-off of the renaissance started with the opening of an outpost of fitness Pop Physique and popular bowling alley-music venue known as Highland Park Bowl and a slew of upscale coffee shops and restaurants that followed.

In the past year, the turnover in storefronts and addition of new businesses on the street has been accelerating in more significant ways, according to brokers.

James Beard award-winning chef Matt Molina is opening a new restaurant called Hippo on the street this month.

Residential real estate brokerage Pacific Union opened its first eastside location in Highland Park in a significant signal that the upscale brokerage, which has historically focused on the Westside of Los Angeles, sees the signs of growth here.

Creative agency Chandelier Creative, which does work for celebrity and luxury brands, is relocating its New York headquarters to a former pharmacy storefront built in the 1930s on North Figueroa next month. It plans to open a bookstore with community programming and a salon series in the space as well.

“They fell in love with what was happening in the neighborhood,” said Chase Gordon, at real estate brokerage Avison Young who represented the landlord in the deal. “It was on the cusp where you still have the compelling retail and food and drink options and amenities for the office but the neighborhood is firmly rooted in Los Angeles and the L.A. identity.”

Sale prices across North Figueroa are jumping up as investors compete to grab a piece of the street while it’s still at a discount to peak neighborhoods.

The average retail property in Highland Park sold in the past 12 months had an average price of about $350 a square foot. That’s about 25 percent increase from the $280 in the same period only three years, according to CoStar records.

That’s underscored by the $23.3 million sale this week of a portfolio of three retail-oriented properties along the street that includes one of the area’s most well-known buildings, the Frank’s Camera building that still bears the mid-century signage of the former photography supply shop.

Charlotte, North Carolina-based investor Asana Partners acquired the portfolio in its first acquisition in Los Angeles from Engine Real Estate, an L.A. private investor led by Dave Walker.

The portfolio of buildings at 5711, 5715-5717, and 5900 N. Figueroa received multiple offers before Asana won the bidding with its all-cash offer, according to Brody, who represented the seller in the deal.

Engine bought the three properties for about $11.2 million between 2014 and 2016, according to CoStar. The group spent at least $4.2 million rehabilitating the historic properties to their former glory and fully leased them out to hip shops and high-end companies from Blind Barber salon and vegetarian restaurant Kitchen Mouse to residential real estate brokerage Pacific Union and recording studio Lemon Tree.

The recent sale price represents the significant increase in the cost of buying buildings in the area in just a few years, and the attention it's beginning to draw from national investors.

“It says that Highland Park is really on the map now in terms of people wanting to live there, shop there, eat there, and come on the weekends and at nights,” Brody said.

Not surprisingly, rental rates are on the rise as well.

On North Figueroa asking rents are nearly $3 a square foot a month and that’s about double what rents were in the neighborhood only a few years ago, according to CoStar. Still, it’s a discount to the prime rents between $4 and $6 a square foot monthly in Echo Park, spurring a number of shops looking for locations to move to Highland Park.

“Highland Park is moving up because everything else is moving up and it’s naturally next in line,” said Judah Dorn, at Los Angeles commercial real estate brokerage CBRE Group Inc. who lives and works in the Highland Park area. “There are cool unique features on Fig (local shorthand for Figueroa) and York, there are definitely some cool shops.”

As with many areas subject to rapid change and an influx of new money worries about gentrification of Highland Park have been strong and the subject of several community discussions and media reports. In some ways, that discussion has helped new investors and shops to think more conscientiously about how to integrate into the street. Andrew Berk, principal at Avison Young who owns a property in the neighborhood and lives in nearby South Pasadena, said he sees Highland Park and North Figueroa largely as embracing its past in ways that nearby neighborhoods haven’t.

There has not been as much demolition and ground-up development in Highland Park as has occurred in Silverlake or Echo Park.

“Silverlake has depended on being more modern while Highland Park has tilted its head more toward its historic bones,” he said.

Take for instance the recently sold Frank’s Camera building. That property was built as a once-popular five-and-dime chain S. H. Kress & Co. about 90 years ago. Over time, it changed hands to Frank’s, a mom-and-pop photography emporium that occupied the building for 35 years before shuttering four years ago -- allowing the property to fall into some disrepair.

Instead of demolishing it and starting over, Engine rehabilitated the historic property to its former glory and fully leased it out to new shops and businesses.

Berk said he and some other landlords are thoughtful about ensuring some long-time tenants stay in their existing locations with only modest rental increases even as rents rocket around them in a sign that there's the possibility new and old tenants continue to occupy North Figueroa together.

"The community and neighborhood need them," he said.